INCANTAMENTO

While I do not listen to his works often, I have a soft spot for Alio Die's music, mostly as this nice, pretty, and calming output of ambient music. Whilst I know ambient music isn't quite unique, especially since most of it spins around the same wheel that works from Brian Eno, Steve Roach, and Harold Budd spin around, I think Alio Die does have a bit more unique sensibilities going for him, creating music that is a lot more meditative and natural sounding.

I find Incantamento, his 15th studio album in his long discography, to be one that really creates this natural mood quite well. A lot of the sounds and effects on these two long pieces of music use a lot of audio from rushing water, bugs, and other things found in nature, and to my opinion, use these nature recordings quite well within Alio Die's droney sounds.

I find what drives me to this album the most is the big 54 minute track of Lunae, being this beautiful collage in a meditative?ambient trip, with bells and whistles from frogs and bugs, with water rushing in the back to give this a more forestry, and almost pastoral feel. I really like this track, despite its long length.

Though, I will say the track of Waters isn't quite needed, since I find Lunae to work completely fine without it. Even then, I also find Lunae itself to be a bit much, and while I won't scoff at Alio Die for wanting to make lengthy pieces, I also think he should've split the track into two parts, as I feel like listening to a near hour long piece of ambient music, one that isn't as important to my life as Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, can be quite lackluster in the wrong moments. Ultimately, I like both Lunae and Waters. I think Lunae is this really pretty collage of ambient and nature, and Waters achieves these two but on a smaller scale, but I cannot help but feel like there is a lot of fat to scrape off.

Another pretty great Alio Die release. He really does know how to make his crafts, though I still think, despite this, he may always have a bit of problems within his line of work. If you like listening to nature recordings and the like, Incantamento is a good endeavor for your green needs.